Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 by Cops (and) Robbers (missing pg 22-23) (v1.1) Page A

glass boxes that the white-collar people work in all day.
On their own time, they go somewhere else.
                 Anyway,
we’re supposed to cover the cross-streets and West End Avenue and Columbus and
Amsterdam and Central Park West, but whenever I’m at the wheel I tend to be on
Broadway. Unless I feel like doing some fun driving or giving out some tickets,
in which case I go over to Henry Hudson Parkway.
                 Two
days after Tom and I had our talk in his car about Vigano, Paul and I were
heading south on Broadway, me driving, when all of a sudden, half a block ahead
of us, two people came struggling out of a hardware store onto the sidewalk.
They were both male, both Caucasian. One was short, heavy-set, fiftyish,
wearing gray workpants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his
elbows. The other was tall, lanky, twentyish, wearing army boots and khaki
pants and a geen polo shirt. At first, all I could see was that they were
struggling with one another, going around in a circle as though they were
dancing.
                 Paul
saw it too. “There!” he said pointing.
                 I
accelerated, then hit the brakes as we got closer. I
could see now that the tall young one had a small zippered bag in one hand and
a small pistol in the other. The short guy was clinging to the tall guy’s
waist, holding on for dear life, and the tall guy was trying to club him with
the pistol. There were a lot of pedestrians on the sidewalk, as usual, but they
were falling back, giving the two men plenty of room.
                 Paul
and I both jumped out of the car at the same time. He was closer to the curb,
while I had to run around the front of the car. At the same time, the tall guy
finally managed to break loose from the short one. He gave him a shove
backwards, and the short guy staggered a couple of steps and then sat down
hard. The tall guy had seen us coming, and he waved the pistol at us.
                 I
yelled, “Drop it! Drop it!”
                 All
of a sudden the son of a bitch fired two shots. Out of the comer of my eye I
saw Paul go down, but I had to keep my mind on the guy with the gun. He’d
turned and started to run southward along the sidewalk.
                 I
reached the sidewalk, went down on my left knee, propped my forearm on my
raised right knee; all those years of practice paid off after all. I was
sighted on his back, with the green polo shirt, and then on his legs. But the
sidewalks were full, there were too many faces and
bodies past him, right in the line of fire. And he was smart enough not to run
in a straight line but to shift back and forth as he went.
                 I
kept the pistol aimed, in case I could get a clear shot with nobody beyond him,
but it didn’t happen. “Damn it,”
                 I
whispered. “Damn it.” And he disappeared around the corner.
                 I
got back to my feet. Over by the storefront, the older man was also getting up.
Paul was on his back on the sidewalk, but struggling to sit up, moving like a
turtle on its back. I moved to him, holstering the pistol, and crouched beside
him as he finished sitting up. He looked stunned, as though he didn’t know
where he was. I said, “Paul?”
                 “Jesus,”
he said. His voice was slurred. “Jesus.”
                 His
left trouser leg was wet, stained dark, sodden with blood, midway between the
knee and the crotch. “Lie down,” I said, and poked at his near shoulder. But he
wasn’t really conscious at all; he didn’t hear me, or didn’t understand me. He
just went on sitting there, his mouth hanging open, his eyes blinking very
slowly.
                 I
got up again, turning toward the squad car, and the old man clutched at my arm.
When I looked at him, pulling my arm away, he shouted, “The money! The money!”